


start a fire

by a_miiraculer, clairelutra (exosolarmoon)



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends With Benefits, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, a ladynoir manifesto, hopefully, listen this is just gonna be a lot of porn, porn with?? a little bit of plot??
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 19:52:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13371918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_miiraculer/pseuds/a_miiraculer, https://archiveofourown.org/users/exosolarmoon/pseuds/clairelutra
Summary: Ladybug and Chat Noir come to a serious and professional agreement that they should pretend to date so theirchildrencitizens will stop looking sosadfor, like, at least five minutes.Things, obviously, do not go according to plan.(Except that they do. Kind of.)





	start a fire

**Author's Note:**

> shoutouts to: [ruxi](http://howdoyousix.tumblr.com/)+[dora](http://isadorator.tumblr.com/) for l o t s of things, betaing and feedback first and foremost.
> 
> and blame [miracufic](http://miracufic.tumblr.com/) for all of this (he'll either hate it or laugh, and i wanna know which). 
> 
> (also check out all their stuff bc it's *fab*)
> 
> also also: your song rec of the day is 'start a fire' by ryan star.

It started pretty innocuously, really.

They were sitting on one of the larger struts of the Eiffel Tower, taking a break from the fairly boring loops of their patrol, a warm breeze toying with their hair as the shadows of clouds crossed the _Pont d'Iéna_ as fast as the citizens under them.

Frowning at the milling crowd below their toes, Ladybug said, "Hey, is it just me, or does everyone seem... more tired than usual?"

Chat blinked at her, and then at the street. He'd been noticing it himself, but hearing it said aloud brought his attention to just how many of the shoulders in the crowd were slumped in exhaustion, and how drawn some of the faces above them were.

He recognized a startling number of them, either as akuma victims or relatives of akuma victims, which didn't really say much, except that there had been a lot of akuma lately.

That in itself said something, though.

"It's summer," Ladybug went on, thoughtfully tracing a rusty rivet with her fingertip. "Shouldn't people be... I don't know, happier about it?"

"Well," Chat pointed out, more out of habit than actual disagreement, "there've been a bunch of akuma recently. Maybe they're just... tired of running and screaming all the time?" That was a pretty exhausting activity, after all.

Her mouth twisted like the explanation didn't sit quite right with her, and, to be fair, it didn't sit quite right with Chat, either.

"Yeah, but why are there so many akuma in the first place?"

Chat had no answer for that.

Together, the two superheroes contemplated their horde of exhausted charges.

"...It has been, what, seven years?" said Chat quietly, rubbing the back of his neck as guilt sat like a rock in the pit of his stomach. "Seven years is a long time to have to deal with supervillains every other day."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ladybug's shoulders sag. "...And we aren't any closer to Hawkmoth."

Chat sighed and let his hand drop.

 _One third of his life_ had been spent helping her defend the city from a mysterious talking head made of butterflies. No wonder the masses were tired of watching the fight.

"...D'ya think..."

He shut his mouth as soon as he processed the way that sentence was going to end, recognizing a stupid idea when he had one, but Ladybug was already looking over at him, curious.

At the look on her face, he shrugged, embarrassed. "Do you think... if they had something to celebrate, there'd be less akuma?"

Ladybug blinked.

"I mean," he tacked on quickly, "we keep having to cancel festivals—even Bastille Day got crashed this year—and people don't have it easy. Maybe Hawkmoth just has a lot more choice lately."

To his surprise, Ladybug looked thoughtful. "Are you suggesting we throw a festival or something?"

Chat, thinking of the lines that formed around Nathalie's eyes every time she so much as had to arrange a formal dinner, wrinkled his nose. "Or something."

Ladybug elbowed him with a swallowed snicker. "Okay, tiger, like _what?"_

He puffed his reddening cheeks and leaned with the elbow. "Gee, I don't know..."

(It was mostly an ironic nickname, he knew, but said in _that_ tone of voice, he wasn't sure it mattered. The tangled knot of interest sat low and warm in his belly anyway, his face heating in the muggy afternoon air.)

"Big help you are," said Ladybug, but she was laughing as she said it—giggly and full and hiccuping—and, therefore, her point was moot. He was _absolutely_ helping.

"I mean," he added more seriously as he straightened, "the way I see it, we could throw a festival—which would be really big to sort out—or catch Hawkmoth, or... I don't know. Start doing good deeds?"

"We already do those," Ladybug sighed, and dropped her elbow. "Maybe we could... start donating to fun things? Have, I don't know, arcades or malls or fabric stores built?"

"Fabric stores," Chat repeated, grinning.

Ladybug turned her nose up, cheeks flushing pink. "I'm a citizen too, you know!"

( _Oh,_ she was cute.)

Chat raised a finger, biting down on one corner of his mouth. "How about more no-kill shelters, then?"

Ladybug pursed her lips, and then dipped a shoulder and tilted her head in acquiescence.

Chat nodded triumphantly. Kittens won _everyone_ over.

After a moment of silence, Ladybug sighed again and slumped. "We really do need to keep the merch royalties going to the relief fund, though."

Wincing, Chat had to concede that point. Bad enough that they didn't always get on the scene on time—he suspected their approval rating would drop by half _at least_ if they weren't technically paying for the reparations.

...Speaking of approval ratings.

"You know, the city... kind of loves us."

Ladybug cocked her eyebrow in silent question, batting big blueblue _blue_ eyes, and the half-formed idea about some media-related publicity stunt in Chat's head promptly blossomed into something _else_.

"How happy do you think they'd be if we got together?"

As expected, she took one look at his sleazy grin and snorted. "I doubt they'd even _notice_ , minou."

The hook of her smile told Chat she wouldn't really mind if he kept up with that line of thought, at least for a little bit, but the thought them _together_ was turning those warm knots in his stomach into achy longing, so he dropped it with one last mumbled defense of, "Not if we went public with it."

Ladybug hummed noncommittally, and Chat stared at her smile for one, two, three whole seconds before he had to look away, swallowing at the lump in his throat and the tightness in his chest.

The silence lasted long enough for his breathing to ease again, and for his mind to turn back to the problem at hand.

The problem with using their fame to cheer people up was that they were already doing just about everything they _could_ do with it. They were visiting children's hospitals, they were waving at people from parade floats, they were attending events, they were signing autographs and doing meet-and-greets, they were stopping to rescue kittens stuck in trees and picking up trash in the local parks.

At this point, dating might be the only thing left they _could_ do, not that it'd ever happen.

"...Do you think it'd really work?"

Chat nearly jumped out of his skin, and when he looked over, Ladybug was frowning pensively at the skyline.

"...Would what work?"

She turned her gaze to him, a stray shaft of sunlight turning her eyes an unearthy shade of radiation blue, and said, quite simply, "Dating."

"Um," said Chat, because his tongue felt thick and heavy and he was pretty sure his heart had just tried to escape his chest—and might still be.

"I mean, we've tried everything else," she said, apparently having taken a walk down the same road he had. "And, well, they might notice. I think I've lost count of the kids at the hospital that have told me that I should kiss you because every story needs a happy ending."

"Iiiii'm pretty sure they're just repeating things," Chat demurred quickly, and wished the strut they were on was a little less solid metal so he could sink into it more easily. His veins and gut alike were burning the dull red of mortification.

Oh god, _had they really been saying that?_

"Aaand then there are the blog posts," Ladybug added in a mumble, cheeks turning pink again. "...You know the ones."

Chat tried to sink a little further into his seat and failed. He did know the blog posts, after all.

Ladybug sighed. "And the shop owners. And the people at the volunteer place. And the people who stop us on the street. And—... Well. A lot of people ask me if we've gotten together yet."

She was rubbing her forehead at that point, and Chat was resisting burying his face in his hands by a hair's breadth, burning with a blush that reached from his chest to his scalp.

He... he honestly hadn't had a clue. Sure, the odd kid would mention fairy tales to him, and the occasional teenager would wink a little too broadly as they asked about what it was like to be quote-unquote _partners_ with Ladybug, and, of course, the aforementioned blog posts, but for the most part, people left him alone about Ladybug. He hadn't had any reason to think it would be different for her.

"I'm so sorry," he said, and then, at her questioning look, explained: "I had no idea they were, uh, pushing."

Ladybug shrugged. "It's okay. They aren't rude about it or anything. Just... hopeful?"

Chat didn't have much to say to that.

Ladybug's fingers paused where they were tracing the upper edge of her mask, an oddly wry, wistful smile stealing across her face. "...It might make them really happy."

Chat swallowed down on the tumult of emotions bubbling up his throat and said, "It... might."

"I mean, it couldn't hurt to try, right?" she said optimistically, perking up. She laid her hand over his where it rested between them, and his stomach swooped at the touch. "Go to a couple of press conferences holding hands, kiss for the paparazzi, hang out at Disneyland for a little while..."

There was something in Chat whispering that yes, this really _could_ hurt, if he wasn't careful, but the hope in her face was _irresistible._

...Not to mention all the other things she'd suggested.

(Kissing for the cameras wasn't real kissing, he knew, but if they were staging this to _look_ real, then maybe...)

He swallowed again. "That doesn't sound... hard."

"And it wouldn't mean doing anything with the relief fund," Ladybug added brightly. Her smile took on a crooked slant. "And I can finally tell little Nessie at the hospital that I got my happy ending."

 _If only,_ Chat couldn't help but think as he hitched up a smile of his own. "...Sounds like a plan, then?"

"Yup," said Ladybug, popping the 'p' and raising her fist. "Let's do this."

At which point there was nothing to do but bump his fist with hers and hope for the best.

It looked like they were doing this.

* * *

Which was how it came about that, one week later, Chat and Ladybug were standing behind a podium, arms slung around each others' waists and answering questions about their relationship for a _staggering_ number of microphones. Picking questions to answer was less of a matter of opportunity and more of a matter of figuring out which to answer first.

"When did you two get together?" Alya shouted over the rabble. She was at the forefront, as always, with sparkling eyes and a massive grin.

Ladybug's light, airy giggle floated into Chat's ears over the scramble of whispering reporters. "Not too long ago, actually." She looked up at him with a smile he'd always dreamed she'd aim at him one day. "Just a few weeks ago."

Chat somehow managed to smile back, though her hand felt like a brand on his hip and that smile was due to gut him any second now.

Leaning over, he nosed her hair (if he did it because he was supposed to, it didn't really matter whether he wanted to or not, right?), and half the room full of hardened reporters _cooed_ , flashes going off like an eager child had gotten a hold of an abandoned Bastille Day fireworks stash.

Well, at the very least, it looked like this mad-crack plan had a chance of doing what they wanted it to do.

"Bet you're feeling pretty _lucky,_ eh, Chat?" leered a young man in a pressed suit.

The lovesick grin was already well-worn into Chat's face by the time he had to aim it at the crowd. "I'm the luckiest cat in the _whole world."_

Ladybug pinched his side for the (perceived) theatrics.

He dug his claws into hers for revenge.

Neither of their camera-ready smiles budged an inch.

Their still-cooing audience didn't notice a thing.

"How did you two get together?" asked an older woman with an indulgent smile.

They'd rehearsed the story for the past week: Ladybug had started to notice him (ha) a few months back, and had been quietly pining in return—and then Chat had sacrificed himself for her yet again and she'd realized she couldn't keep it to herself anymore.

(It was obvious to everyone and their dog that he had been head-over-heels for her from the very start, so there was only her story to memorize.

...Which was probably a good thing, because what a _story_ it was. _How_ many of his teenage fantasies had centered on that premise?

A lot. The answer was _a lot._ )

And her story was a story he knew, but until that moment, he'd never actually heard her tell it to anyone else.

Maybe they should have had a trial run, so he could've been prepared for Ladybug to glance at him, blush, smile, and murmur, just loud enough to be heard by the microphones, "I just... realized I couldn't lose him."

At least it was completely in character for him to look away, neck and ears and face burning.

There was another storm of flashes going off, but Chat's attention was yanked to where Ladybug's thumb was stroking over his hip, a soothing little gesture amid all the chaos.

He squeezed hers back in gratitude, even as he rubbed the back of his neck and let his punch-drunk smile be recorded for the whole world (or, at least, the whole of Paris) to see.

"Could we get a kiss?" said a sly-looking woman in her mid-twenties or so. "One for the kids at home?"

Chat could see the television ratings spinning like triple-seven casino slots in the woman's head—could see them almost as clearly as he could feel the phantom fantasy ofLadybug's arms wrapped around his neck, Ladybug's mouth pressed against his in a soft caress—and ended up choking out, "O-o-oh, I, um..."

(They'd talked about the possibility of being asked, of course, but just like the rest of this, Chat found himself _spectacularly_ unprepared for the reality of it.)

Ladybug was still smiling, now looking up at him with a question in her eyes, and time seemed to slow down for Chat.

"I-I mean," he stammered, breathless as his imagination painted her lips sliding between his in such clarity he could just about _taste_ her. "We. We could... do that."

Ladybug's mouth twitched into a smirk, rosy and full, and Chat gulped.

He could count his every heartbeat as he tilted his head down, count her every eyelash and freckle as she tilted hers _up,_ the click of the shutters slowing to match his pulse.

The kiss lasted only a few brief seconds (only long enough for most of the photographers to get a good shot), but the contact detonated through Chat's system like a _supernova_.

The chap of her lower lip scraped lightly at his, the electric shock of it raising goosebumps on his arms, her breath hot and musk against his cheek and in his nose, her hand flexing and stroking over his hip—

And then it was over, and the room was cheering.

Chat set his free arm on the podium and hoped it wasn't obvious how much weight he was leaning on it.

_What a first kiss **that** was._

Ladybug giggled, now _also_ breathless as well as light and airy, and Chat wasn't sure how his smile stayed stuck to his face while his stomach was bottoming out, but stay stuck it did.

"You two are _adorable_ ," cooed someone-or-other—Chat was having a hard time making his eyes focus with the _thrill_ of that kiss still shimmering under his skin.

Beaming, Ladybug flashed their audience a peace sign.

* * *

In the end, the press conference (fan convention, more like) was a success.

Standing in one of the many hidden cubbies that she and Chat had found over the course of their villain-trouncing career, Ladybug flipped through the headlines of the local gazette's website with pride—that picture of her and Chat kissing was the front page.

She and Chat were officially public, according to most major Paris-based news sites. There weren't many details out yet, seeing as it had only been an hour since the conference had ended, but _already_ a twitter tag was forming.

Ladybug switched apps, tapping the screen of her communicator, and thumbed down #LadynoirLive, which had enough transcribed screams to make her grin. It had yet to be seen if this would actually bring up Paris' general mood, but she'd say their plan was off to a promising start.

"That went well," she noted, looking up from her communicator.

Chat, the dork, looked like he'd run a marathon.

He was leaning against the dirty stucco of the far wall, looking out over the city through the missing fourth. His face was flushed, his hair mussed from the numerous times he'd dragged his claws through it, an odd tension in his frame and around his eyes that Ladybug couldn't help but equate to thirst—or nerves, considering the context.

(Still looked like thirst to her, though.)

"Aw, c'mon Chat," she said reassuringly, plucking her way across the space and turning back to her communicator. "This is gonna go great."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him jump, head whipping around as he glanced at her and then jerking away in flustered embarrassment. "I know, I know."

Her thumb hit on a video that'd been uploaded to the #LadynoirLive tag, one that definitely looked like a clip of the interview. Curiously tapping the sound button, Ladybug caught the tail end of, _"—feeling pretty **lucky,** eh, Chat?"_

The real Chat next to her flinched again, but the fuzzy, tiny image of Chat on her screen looked down at an even tinier image of Ladybug (oh god, even with her new suit she looked _minuscule_ next to him), then aimed possibly the most _enchanted_ smile Ladybug had ever _seen_ at the cameras and sighed, _"I'm the luckiest cat in the **whole world."**_

Ladybug stared for one, two seconds, and then whistled long and low, absurdly impressed.

He was _good._

"What are _you_ worried about anyway?" she asked, elbowing him now that she was close enough. "That was amazing!"

"Amazing," Chat repeated flatly.

"Are you kidding?" she asked, half laughing as she played the video again. Forget 'world'—tiny Chat smiled down at tiny Ladybug like she was his whole damn _universe._ "I'm getting butterflies from _here._ Where did you learn to _do_ that?"

"Um," said Chat.

Whoops—'where' was a secret identity question, right. It wasn't really any of her business who Chat had fallen for at some point in his life, now was it.

"Really," she said, going back to the video and scratching her cheek in mild embarrassment, "I'm the one who should be worried here—I need to look as hung up as you do."

(Which might be a challenge, considering how bad her dating history looked right now. She didn't have any good references for 'lovesick' in that mess—hell, she'd barely had any _orgasms_ in that mess.)

Chat chuckled, apparently not particularly reassured, but that was okay. He'd see how well this worked in time.

They both would.

"Speaking of," she said, flipping her communicator shut, "we should probably work out how we're gonna do this."

"Right," he said, turning to face her. Then: "...Wait, didn't we already do that?"

Ladybug waved her communicator and then yo-yo'd it in thought. "I mean, we got our story straight, but when do we kiss?"

Chat stumbled in the process of leaning his back against the wall. "...Kiss."

"Yeah, like, if we only kiss in front of the cameras, someone's going to see through it, you know." Her weapon hit the palm of her hand with a quiet smack, and Ladybug paused as the sense memory of Chat's lips on hers, his arm around her waist and his front solid and warm against her own, wriggled its way to the forefront of her thoughts. She pushed it back as she sent her weapon down again with a flick of her wrist, but the curl of curiosity it stirred in her gut was harder to displace. "And if we _always_ kiss when there's a camera, the same thing's going to happen."

Silence, and then Chat said, voice cracking, "...R-right."

Ladybug looked up in concern, but Chat coughed and pressed on before she could ask.

"So... the when and where?" He made a funny gesture by his hip before setting his hand on it. "We should, um... probably arrange dates, too."

Dropping her yo-yo and letting it stall on the end of its lead, she thought about it. "Every week? Every other week? They're gonna know how often we go out, unless they assume we have Netflix-and-chill nights on random rooftops where no one's looking for us."

Chat _choked,_ and then raised a fist to his mouth as the noise turned into a coughing fit.

"You okay?" Ladybug wondered, bemused, and Chat held up a hand to stall her.

"Fine—" He coughed again, his voice cracking over, "J-just fine."

 _You don't sound very fine,_ Ladybug didn't get to say before Chat was fording on, apparently determined to ignore whatever was ailing him.

"A-anyway," he half-squeaked, fumbling with his bell-pull as he tugged it down an inch, looking everywhere but her, "e-every other week sounds good—Disneyland? Dinner?"

 _Netflix-and-chill on random rooftops?_ Ladybug didn't suggest it, no matter how intrigued she was with the sudden thought—and his reaction to it—but she was tempted. That wasn't what he'd signed up for, she knew, but she also knew that she could be _very convincing_ when she tried.

"Works for me," was what she said instead, looking away herself as she yanked her yo-yo back into her hand. "As for kisses... on patrol? Maybe after battles, I don't know—Ah!" Another thought struck her. She gestured at his nose with her yo-yo. "We should make out on top of the Eiffel Tower—you know, for aesthetic."

"On... top of the Eiffel Tower," Chat echoed faintly, staring at her mischievous leer.

"We _are_ the superheroes of _Paris,"_ Ladybug pointed out, smile falling as she took him in, concern niggling at the back of her mind. "What would be the point if we didn't?"

Chat let out a snort, and Ladybug noticed he was flushed around the edges of his mask as he scrubbed the back of his neck.

"...Nervous?" she guessed. "It's not a big deal if we can't convince them, you know."

Chat let out a shaken little laugh, "N-no, it's, um, not that."

Ladybug cocked her head.

"It's... ah." He coughed again, and then cleared his throat. "Th-the kisses, I guess?"

"...Oh." It occurred to Ladybug that, for all his excellent acting, she'd never actually heard Chat say whether or not he _minded_ kissing her regularly. Disappointment cooling her gut, she offered, "I mean, we could always say we don't really do PDA, if you don't want to..."

"No!" Chat yelped, his back stiffening off the wall as he waved his hands. "I-I mean, I don't _mind_ , b-but..."

Ladybug set her knuckles on her hip, absently clipping her weapon back to its holding place. "'But'?"

He chuckled awkwardly, turning even redder. "I-I mean, I'm not... I don't... have a whole lot of e-experience in... well."

Ladybug paused.

...That felt like a bluff.

Why did that feel like a bluff?

She considered that for a moment, and then put on a sly look. "Well, if you're that worried about it, then we should practice."

(If he didn't want to kiss her, the real reason would come out before she managed to put her face on his—unless, of course, he was _really_ dedicated to the bluff, in which case his dislike and-or hesitation would be obvious from the kiss anyway.)

It was Chat's turn to go very, very still.

"...Practice," he repeated, and the statement kind of sounded like it should've ended in an interrobang, except that his voice was cracking too badly to tell.

"The only way to get experience," she said airily, taking a step towards him and having her suspicions strengthened when he shrank against the wall. "Well?"

"Here?" Oh, he was _really_ red now. "N-now?"

Ladybug only stopped when their chests were brushing, narrowing her eyes up at her partner—the one who seemed to be keeping rather _pertinent_ secrets from her. "I mean, if it's _experience_ you're worried about..."

He met her eye, his own wide and panicked, and gulped.

Ladybug patiently waited for the actual reason.

But instead of giving her one, Chat let his gaze fall to her mouth, slit pupils widening as they focused on her, and swallowed again.

Distantly, with the faintest hint of butterflies forming in the pit of her stomach, Ladybug noted that that didn't _look_ like disinterest.

"I'm just... just a little nervous, I guess," Chat admitted, rough and low and raw, and Ladybug found herself inhaling sharply as his voice hit on a timbre that shivered down her spine glitter-bright and velvet-dark. "I haven't really... done this much before. You deserve better than someone who sucks at it."

Somehow, she didn't realize she was leaning in until she felt that last sentence spoken over her lips in a stutter of hot air.

She wondered if she should stop.

"...Well," she murmured after a moment of hesitation. She reached up to trace the line of his jaw, encouraging him to tilt his head down to her. "That's what practice is for, right?"

Chat shivered, swallowed, and whispered, "Right."

And so Ladybug kissed him.

She wasn't a stranger to bad kisses, but experience said that the only way to really _suck_ (ha) at kissing was to ignore your partner's signals (thanks, Elliot, Cameron, guy-in-red-at-the-bar), or misinterpret and jump the gun ( _no_ thank you, John, Alexandre, Theo), or refuse to engage at all (she couldn't even remember that guy's name, thank god), and Chat...

Chat didn't do any of that, really.

He was tentative, but if he hadn't told her, she never would've guessed that he was inexperienced.

He cupped her cheek, running his thumb over the seam between mask and skin, delicate to the point of reverence and leaving tingles in his wake. He rested his hand on her shoulder, unobtrusive and careful, the touch feeling like it was keeping track of her rather than holding her. He followed her lead, participating in the slow stroke of lips and tongue and teeth only a beat or two after she started, and Ladybug was startled to find that it stirred something in her.

It felt like a tug deep in her belly, like her toes curling in her new boots and her breath coming short around the sharp fact of Chat cradling her and kissing her and touching her like she was something _precious._

It was... unfamiliar— _new?_ —but he was so _real_ and so _close_ (so solid and warm and—) that she couldn't remember why.

Instead of dwelling (not that she could, really), she wrapped her arms around his neck and tugged him closer.

The hand on her shoulder stroked deliciously down her back to curl around her waist and pull her flush against his chest, a groan not her own vibrating in her mouth and against her stomach, and yes, Ladybug was very much on board with this.

It took a bit of nibbling and a couple of kittenish licks and, finally, her thumb tracing the corner of his mouth to convince him that he should open his mouth to her, but the way he gasped and _shuddered_ when she pressed her tongue to his was ridiculously gratifying.

And then he turned the tables on her, tilting their heads so he had better access to explore her mouth, and it was Ladybug's turn to gasp.

He stilled at the noise, and then jerked.

Their noses bumped painfully, and Ladybug's gasp melted into a giggle as the zing shot through the back of her throat—a giggle that got louder at Chat's subsonic grumble.

He pulled back and adjusted their heads more carefully this time, and the result was his tongue stroking deep into her mouth and cutting her giggle into a mewl, the heat that had been simmering in her belly unnoticed flaring to blazing, burning _life._

He shuddered again, a second groan breaking in his throat, and Ladybug's hips nudged into his without her having to think about it.

 _Logically,_ she shouldn't have been surprised that she was met with a firm, hot ridge of arousal there, but she'd been so wrapped up in everything else about him that she was. She shouldn't have been so pleased that she'd managed to turn him on that much (hadn't he said something about inexperience?) but Chat had occupied that frustrating space of very attractive and very platonic friend for so long that she _was._

A sigh fluttered out of her, a lazy sort of want making it imperative that she get as close as possible as soon as possible, and the easiest way to do that was to... press him against the wall.

He was already against the wall, though, so all that was left for her to do was snuggle in tight. This was not a hardship—and even less so when he hummed and melted into her in return. It was easy, easy, _so_ easy to lose track of time, to fall into the rhythm and back-and-forth of the embrace, that it only really occurred to her to pull back when her lips started to ache.

It was funny though—she didn't realize until she pulled back (their mouths making a wet little _click_ as they parted, the noise shooting down her spine in the way his voice had) that her face was hot.

That _all_ of her was hot, actually, or that her toes were still curled in her new boots. Her lungs were burning and her breath was coming short, excited tingles were dancing through her thighs and belly and breasts, and she was a little surprised to find that all she wanted was to do that again.

And again. And again and again and...

"Oh..." Chat breathed, eyes unfocused and face even redder than when she'd seen it last, clinging to her and slumped against the wall like they were the only things keeping him up. "Oh _wow_..."

Ladybug tapped a little kiss to his slack lips before she could stop herself.

"See?" she said, and then cleared her throat in surprise when she found her voice just _gone_. "That... that wasn't so bad, was it?"

Numbly, with glazed eyes and flushed lips, Chat shook his head.

Giggling, Ladybug untangled herself like an afterthought, and found that her limbs were loose with pleasure and quiet arousal.

...She _really_ wouldn't mind doing that more often.

"We've got this in the bag," she reassured her stunned partner, who was now leaning back against the wall with his palms pressed flat against the stucco. "We'll just... keep that to patrol and dates, and we're good... I think."

Chat hummed, the noise just low enough to make her belly quiver, and Ladybug took a deep breath to steady it.

"Sound like a plan?" she asked, and got a slow nod in return. "Good."

A warm, flirty summer breeze circled their cubby, disturbing the dust in the corners and bringing with it a mild stench from somewhere or other.

Wrinkling her nose, Ladybug set a hand on her hip as she turned to the exit.

"...So, how do you feel about sneaking into Cinéma du Panthéon this weekend?"

A snort punched its way out of Chat. "I think they'd let us in if we asked, you know."

"Aw, c'mon, Chat." She grinned over her shoulder. "Where's the fun in that?"

* * *

They sneaked into Cinéma du Panthéon that weekend.

No akuma meant that Chat didn't see her until then, which... might have been a good thing, for all that his body insisted that _no, it really wasn't._

Four days straight of straying thoughts and filthy dreams and waking up in the middle of the night to the taste of her in his mouth and Chat might've been going a little bit _insane._

Ladybug made him feel a little bit crazy normally, but that _kiss_ was sitting under his skin no matter what he did, and he was going right out of his _mind._

It really didn't help that no matter where he turned, that picture of the two of them locked in (comparatively) polite embrace was _everywhere_ —in the news, all over his social media... heck, it was even in the morning paper the Gorilla brought in.

And he was used to seeing his face on every adspace in the city, but this...

This was...

Different.

(If it wasn't the kiss—that kiss that could only remind him of _that_ afternoon—then it was him aiming that too-honest lovesick smile at the top of her head, or the equally lovesick but utterly _fake_ smile she was flashing back at him, and no matter what the picture was of, it was a resoundingly _loud_ reminder of what he didn't have.

It had been his idea in the first place, but it still felt like a violation of privacy somehow—like it exposed something too personal to be plastered across every celebrity rag and television screen.)

Surprisingly, it took until Saturday for the restless need in his bones and squirming discomfort in his gut to congeal into panic, but by then it was late, and he was already waiting for her on top of the post office on the movie theater's adjacent corner.

He was on his twenty-seventh pass from air conditioning unit to wall and his fifty-third whispered, "It's okay, I'm cool, I'm cool, I'm _good,"_ when he was put out of his misery.

"Hey," said Ladybug.

"Hyek!" said Chat, who was in the process of tripping over his own two feet and faceplanting into the wall.

A few pigeons cooed down at him, curious.

_Suave, thy name is Chat._

Ladybug pulled him off the wall by his shoulder, steadying him as she asked, laughing, "Are you okay?"

"Peachy," he groaned, rubbing his stinging nose. "Thanks."

She snorted a giggle, and Chat's stomach gave one neat little flip as the noise brought up a sense-memory of her limbs slipping through his like silk as she left him slumped in the corner of their nook.

"Dork."

"Your dork," he reminded her as he straightened, catching sight of her smile and glancing away before he could do anything unadvised about it. "Officially, even."

"Hmm," she agreed.

(She was wearing cherry red lipstick, and normally talking to her would knock his spinning thoughts into some semblance of order but she was wearing _cherry red lipstick_ and all he could see-feel- _think_ was the fantasy of that lipstick smeared around his mouth, down his neck, over his shoulders and across his chest—)

"So!" he said, not looking at her as he offered his arm and set the butt of his staff against the ground in preparation. "Shall we depart, my lady?"

Strategy: act normal until his mess of feelings got the memo—which was the strategy he usually fell back on when Ladybug put _ideas_ in his head that he had no permission to act on.

Of course, then she linked her arm in his, snuggling up to his side with soft curves and not an iota of shame, and said, "We shall, good sir."

...She felt _really_ good. Chat tried not to let it get to him. "Going u—"

Just as he was pressing the glowing button that would raise them up to the next roof, Ladybug left a smacking kiss on his cheek, waxy warmth smearing at the point of contact.

Chat overshot their target by several meters.

* * *

Seated in the very back of the theater with the ceiling nearly brushing the tips of his ears with every movement of his head, Chat started to relax again.

One of the Spider-Man movies was playing on the screen (they'd gotten in in the middle of the plot), Ladybug was beside him (not _on_ him, thank god—they'd barely begun this charade and he'd already hit his limit), and sneaking past the parlor entrance had been the kind of fun he hadn't had since...

Well, since the last time he'd done something fun and ridiculous and childish with Ladybug.

Which had been last week, actually, when they'd fed that duck akuma in a very specific pattern to make it do a bee dance.

(Fun and ridiculous and childish was kind of their MO whenever the city (or world) wasn't at stake, after all.)

He was pretty sure he should be invested in whatever had Peter Parker in tears, but at the moment, it was enough to just slouch in his seat and watch Ladybug lean forward eagerly, face lit by the screen and a grin alike.

She had her hand over his on their shared armrest, her fingers clenching and unclenching on his wrist in time with the action on the screen, pale throat working and chest rising on a gasp as Peter fell off a building on the silver (canvas) screen in front of them. Inky black hair curled at her nape and feathered around her temples where it escaped her ribbons, blending into her dark collar and contrasting sharply with the slips of skin revealed by her new outfit—it was sleeveless now, with black opera gloves to protect her arms instead.

(Before the switch, Chat never would have suspected he'd have a thing for shoulders, and yet it had taken about three weeks for him to _not_ fumble his throws and freeze mid-battle because he'd caught sight of hers again. The party in his pants had always gone up in loud, raucous cheers for the way she wielded herself, and apparently well-defined rotator cuffs and deltoid muscles were no exception.)

(Rotator cuffs, deltoid muscles, and clavicles. There was a _dip_ in her collar now, a little V that revealed just that much more skin than he was used to—a divot in the material that, if he thought about it too much, tended to make him want to sit down.

His partner really was almost _unbearably_ attractive.

Limited to looking as he was, Chat couldn't decide if he was a poor bastard or one _lucky_ cat for having a view like that. He usually tended towards the latter, but then she'd tease him or flirt with someone else or make a joke _just_ this side of filthy, and he'd spend a few hours desperately wishing that he wanted her just a little bit less.)

The object of his regard jerked him out of his daze with a jerk of her own, cheeks scrunching adorably as she giggled at something he'd missed.

Cute.

She glanced back at him, still grinning as she cocked her head in silent question.

It was habit and thoughtlessness that had him saying, "You know what we should do?"

"What?"

"Do the _real_ teenager-date thing—make out."

Ladybug blinked, then pushed one of those bare shoulders against his. "Oh _really."_

 _"Yes,_ really," he mumbled back. He leered down at her. "We might even get caught."

Which, had he said it two weeks ago, would have earned him a snicker and an eye-roll and an elbow to the gut.

He was having a terribly hard time remembering that this wasn't two weeks ago.

He was _in no way_ prepared for Ladybug to glance down at his mouth with a speculative look, nor for her to hum and glance at the exit, murmuring, "Oh. I hadn't thought about that."

He was still trying not to swallow his tongue when Ladybug looked around, taking stock of possible watchers, and then shimmied over the armrest and plopped herself in his lap.

"You have good ideas sometimes, you know?" she whispered, all lithe muscle and plush curves and _life_ humming under her skin as she squirmed against him, and Chat wasn't very used to physical contact of _any_ sort, much less...

She settled herself with her shins digging into his thighs and her knees on either side of his hips in the narrow space afforded them by his seat, and then, with exactly no ceremony at all, leaned in and nosed his cheek.

There was probably an expletive of some sort that fit this situation, but Chat was too busy trying to remember how to breathe to think of one.

(Other things the party in his pants went crazy for: full-body contact and Ladybug touching his face, apparently.

Chat would feel pathetic, except that Ladybug's sheer volume of  _life_ didn't leave any room in him for shame.)

Hot breath warming his lips, Ladybug continued her exploratory little eskimo kiss until she found his mouth, and then tilted her head and kissed him for real.

Chat choked down a groan and slammed his eyes shut, fire racing through his veins like fault lines.

Kissing Ladybug wasn't any less _amazing_ the second (thrid?) time around.

The drag of her lips still took up his entire headspace, her stuttering breathing and soft sighs still hit something vital in his chest cavity, the way her body felt against his still made his hips lock up before they'd even really begun.

She got tired of crouching over him fast, and Chat was just starting to get back into the rhythm of kissing when she nipped his lip and pulled away.

He blinked, dazed, at the space she'd occupied, and then found her resettling herself in his lap.

"Sidesaddle?" he croaked, and then, _"Gnk!"_ as Ladybug apparently took his joke as an invitation (that was happening a lot and he should probably keep his mouth shut but _oh god_ ) to squirm... slower. And hotter.

"You know it," she giggled, air cooling and tickling his overheated skin as the armrests dented and cracked under his grip.

Fuck fuck fuck _fu—_

And then her mouth was on his again, soft breasts pressed against his chest and waist tucked into the crook of his arm and _oh yes,_ this was much better.

The new position made it much easier to drag her closer as she dragged a growl out of the back of his throat, much easier to pinch her side when she laughed at him for it, much easier to feel her shudder and sigh and hum as the kiss went deeper.

She ran her thumb down his jaw, from ear to chin, and then cupped his head to change the angle, making a concentrated effort to coax his lips apart again, though it took him a second to figure out that that was what she wanted. Sliding her hands into his hair and tugging gently, she purred into his mouth.

His face was tingling so hard it was almost painful, his entire body a heartbeat, every sensation heightened in this ridiculously intimate space, and maybe he could be forgiven for being a little slow on the uptake—his heart just plain wasn't _ready_ for her.

Ladybug didn't kiss to take prisoners, and his white flag was slipping from his fingers, forgotten, as she pushed him to _ruin._

Which was, of course, when they were interrupted.

"Er, Ladybug? Ch-Chat Noir?"

The words filtered through his head, caught by his enhanced hearing, but didn't really hold much meaning to Chat's hormone-dazed mind.

The intruder cleared his throat a bit louder.

It still didn't seem very important to Chat, but Ladybug pulled her face away from his with an amicable hum, giving whoever-it-was her full attention.

Chat followed her gaze to an _extremely_ awkward-looking usher.

"I'm sorry, but, um, this _really_ isn't the, ah, place for this?" said the usher, looking anywhere but them.

Which was a shame, because Ladybug's make up was a _mess_ and _he'd done that_ and why would anyone want to look anywhere else?

There were tourists and locals alike peeking over the backs of their seats. Chat was pretty sure he caught a couple of hurried camera flashes. There was certainly a low hum of whispering outside the blood pounding in his ears, interrupted only when something crashed on the big screen.

"Oh, sorry," said Ladybug, not sounding sorry in the least. "Couldn't resist, you know?"

The tone was familiar, but the _words_...

He could get used to those, that was for sure.

"Right," said the usher, still not looking at either of them. His name tag read, 'Carlos'. "But if you could maybe 'not resist' _outside_..."

Even as dazed as Chat was, he could still kind of hear the, _or just not on my shift_ , in the poor employee's voice. Probably something to do with company policy—Chat was more familiar with code of conduct agreements than he really should be.

He squeezed Ladybug's hip pointedly when it looked like she was going to keep going, and then got very, _very_ distracted at the firm flesh under his hands.

Oblivious to his distraction, Ladybug got the message. "Oh, uh, yes, sure!"

One endearingly awkward, lipstick-smeared grin later, she was sliding off his lap (leaving his whole front icy and needy without her) and catching his hand to tug him along behind her.

The usher breathed a sigh of relief.

They scuttled, not-quite-shamefaced, past him, and then paraded through the lobby and out onto the street, still more not-so-discreet photography flickering in their wake.

"So!" said Chat, with distinctly more dignity than someone really _should_ while standing in the middle of tourist-Paris and looking like a love-drunk cartoon character. He'd gotten used to faking composure over the years. "Where to?"

Ladybug raised one finger of her free hand, and then tilted it in the direction of the now-lit Eiffel Tower, grinning.

* * *

Parading across _half of Paris_ when most of the blood in his body was occupying a persistent hard-on was a new and exciting experience Chat wasn't eager to repeat.

(Okay, so they took the roofs and the backstreets, but walking in his state was still pretty uncomfortable, so _._

His entire system seemed to be of the opinion that the beautiful girl next to him—the one laughing as she wiped her lipstick off their faces in an alley with sheepishly procured paper napkins—might want to hop on his dick and take him for a spin _,_ and that he really, _desperately_ needed to be ready for that eventuality. Which was ridiculous, but no number of pointedly unsexy thoughts seemed able to dissuade it.

Of course, Ladybug, who mercilessly snuggled up to his side whenever they happened on a civilian with a camera, _really_ wasn't helping his case.

Chat had yet to decide how he felt about that.)

The tower itself was surprisingly empty for a Friday night.

They found a place between the struts about halfway up, where Chat could sit with his legs dangling over the edge (handily in camera range, even if the rest of him wasn't) and Ladybug could settle herself in his lap once again, this time with her legs around his waist ( _gnf_ ) and her hands smoothing his shoulders and her mouth on his.

"You know," Chat managed to mumble out between _mind-blowing_ kisses, "it's not really _aesthetic_ if no one can see us."

It also wasn't serving the whole 'fake dating' charade, but he wasn't about to be the one to remind her of that. She could remember _that_ tidbit on her own time.

"Details," Ladybug dismissed. She wriggled higher and leaned back, surveying him with unmistakable satisfaction. "Besides, _I_ can see you."

Chat arched and groaned. He really couldn't _not_.

Head clunking back against the metal, Chat felt Ladybug stroke his chest, and tried not to let either gesture or words get to him.

He had about as much success as could be expected.

"You're really pretty, you know that?" Ladybug asked, grin putting a dimple in one of her cheeks. She fiddled with his bell, and Chat felt it like a velvet punch to the gut when it _snerclick'd_ down a spare half centimeter. "What's your secret, tiger?"

"I'm the _model_ of 'pretty,'" he joked, because even if he wasn't sure he'd ever quite be the same again after this, _she_ didn't need to know that. He cracked a weak grin in response to hers. "Easy to look good when you set the standard."

"Oh my _god,"_ she laughed, sweet and bright, shoulders shaking. This close, he could feel her laughter through her thighs.

And, speaking of close, she was just _close_ enough that he could wrap his arms around her waist and pull her down on top of him.

How delightfully convenient.

Not that he was thinking of hugging her over how adorable her laughter was, of course. What kind of lovesick idiot would think that?

The little hitch in that laughter when she hit his chest suggested that Chat was exactly that kind of lovesick idiot.

He wasn't spared the time for consternation, though—Ladybug responded to the embrace by trailing little kisses over his jaw, thumbing the edge of his mask and wriggling herself so she could dangle one delicate ankle over the edge. Her leg lined his like a lover's—which was the point, he supposed.

The Eiffel Tower's elevator hummed a signal of its next ascent. There was a large beam protecting most of their forms from tourist eyes, but their feet would certainly be in range. Chat wondered if this moment would make it onto tomorrow's news, what with all the other material they'd been given tonight.

Not that Ladybug stayed there long enough to make an impression on their maybe-audience. By the time her kisses reached his chin, she was squirming and grumbling again, pulling back to frown at how she was twisted up around him.

It did look incredibly uncomfortable, Chat had to admit.

After a second of contemplation, he shifted his weight to the side, bracing his foot on a joint and raising his knee just slightly. From there, he held her hips up and nudged her into straddling that thigh, the inside of her folded knee pressed to the outside of his hip and her other leg stretched out behind her. It put them a little farther apart, but looked a little less like a particularly inventive yoga pose.

"Better?"

"Hm," Ladybug said, and then contemplatively wrapped her arms around his shoulders and let herself fall.

Chat caught her automatically, only to find himself twisted over her now, nose-to-nose with her and her pleased little smile, her (mouth-watering) hips and stomach and chest cradled tight against him.

"Better," she confirmed, and he saw her point her toes out of the corner of his eye only a second before he had to slam his eyes shut, because she was kissing him again.

Chat was very much on board with this 'better.'

Kissing, he was finding, was less strawberries and fireworks, and more... champagne fizz, musk, and a craving that went bone-deep—hot and sluggish and _needing._

It was the way her breath would hitch on a hum, and he'd find that there wasn't any air his lungs could grasp. It was the way her tongue flirted with his as he explored her mouth, the way her hips would shift against his thigh when he hit a good spot. It was the way she shivered and melted when he stroked her back, the way his every nerve _sang_ at her soft, satisfied sigh.

It was almost nothing to figure out that squeezing her thigh made her breathing go uneven, gave her voice a purring quality that felt like silk and velvet in his chest. That doing the same for her hip did nothing but make his head spin with how _good_ she felt, but running his thumb up the seam between thigh and hip had her legs clenching around his, a little mewl escaping her throat. That running his hand up her stomach and ribcage didn't garner a reaction until he brushed the underside of her breast, and then she pressed herself tighter against him, moaning softly.

It was almost a game—figure out what kind of touches earned the best noises.

He lost himself to it, seeking out the exact combination of touches that would make her squeak and shudder and squirm, and he sort of... stopped _entirely_ keeping track of where his hands were going.

It was kind of a jolt when Ladybug, dropping her head on his shoulder, broke her mouth away from his to gasp, "Ah!" and he looked down to find he had both hands on her ass.

_Oops._

He tried to pull his hands away.

Operative word being 'try' because as soon as he did, Ladybug let out another pleading little whine, shifting her hips and pushing back into his hands.

Heat prickling under his skin, Chat swallowed and put his hands back, gingerly pressing his fingers into her flesh.

He could feel every inch of the sigh she let out then, from her belly to her chest to the way the air caught and swirled against his overheated neck. Dark eyelashes fluttered against the scarlet of her mask, kiss-flushed lips slack and heat-flushed cheeks smooth.

Once, when he was very small, one of his father's foreign business partners had suggested that the best way to cool down in summer was to drink a cup of hot tea. He had tried it once and then sworn it off forever, but when Ladybug cracked her eyes open, glassy and unfocused and dazed, it felt just like that—like heat _searing_ his insides so bright that everything else felt luxuriously cool in comparison.

"Oh..." she breathed, thick and dark and _oh god—_ "You're _really_ good at that."

_Gnh **fuck.**_

It was the sort of thing that would have had him tripping over his feet on a good day, but here and now, when he was just as melted and hazy and slow as she was, all he could notice was that she'd curled her toes as she'd said it.

Her toes that were still dangling over the edge right next to his, the only part of the show they were putting on that was on display.

Chat wondered if their audience knew—if they had any idea what was going on above their heads, above the lattice. If they had any clue as to how Ladybug was panting, and whether it was obvious they were tangled together in this painfully intimate little knot, whether their soirée had been obvious from the way their bodies moved with one another.

There was a very good chance that their audience neither knew nor cared, but he still wondered what they looked like from there.

He swallowed around his tongue and kneaded the curve of her backside, feeling Ladybug groan appreciatively into his ear and flutter her thighs around the leg she was still straddling.

Her hips didn't hitch so much as they _rolled_ this time, but even the blaze that motion sent through his veins couldn't distract him from the way it moved the calf that she dangled over the edge.

It was occurring to him, acute embarrassment blooming hot in his stomach and awareness skittering down his spine, that if their audience thought anything, they _probably_ didn't think that he and Ladybug were doing anything as innocent as sucking face. If that little motion was all he'd had to go off of, _he_ sure wouldn't have.

Ladybug nuzzled the crook of his neck, apparently as oblivious to this revelation as she was to the lurid fantasies cluttering up in his head.

A nip to his pulse made his hands clench, and the resulting squeeze shuddered up her spine as her hips dipped into another slow roll, rubbing the heat of her against his thigh.

He got the message.

He didn't quite manage to put the embarrassment out of his mind, but that sharp edge of awareness wasn't precisely unwelcome. It brought his attention to the fact that he could feel the actual muscles of her sex fluttering against him, and if _that_ wasn't a one-way trip to _too turned on to think_ , then nothing was.

Fortunately, he didn't really _need_ to think to bump that game up to seeking out every touch that made her react that... _viscerally._

And surprisingly, the things that could make Ladybug clench around nothing (oh _god_ ) were numerous.

Claws tracing down the cleft of her ass until it met her thighs. Cupping and tracing her breasts, but only very lightly. Rubbing her stomach just below the bellybutton, oddly enough. Tangling his fingers in the fine hairs at the back of her neck and tugging. Growling as low as he could manage (he was going to remember that one). Pressing his tongue against hers and then letting them slide against one another. Tilting her hips forward or shifting his thigh back so her weight fell on her sweet spot. Nibbling at her neck and the hollow beneath her ear, but not sucking or kissing. Stroking his thumbs over the parts of her shoulders exposed by her suit—that was a baffling one.

The list went on, but he felt like he'd barely gotten started when Ladybug wrenched herself back, chest heaving.

"Cha- _at_..."

One word, just his name, and Chat felt it like a shot of Russian vodka.

He was still blinking the white out of his vision, heart hammering so hard it was rattling his teeth and breath alike, when she clutched at his wrist, making to shift it and hesitating halfway.

"Nngh?" Chat asked, dazed.

Ladybug bit her lip, a shy look flitting across her face under her crimson blush. (Oh. He'd done _that..._ ) "D—... D'you think..."

She lifted off his thigh, and it was only then that Chat realized that the place she'd been guiding him to was... right between her legs.

He could swear his heart just up and _stopped._

Her black-gloved thumb disappeared into his suit as she ran it over his wrist, blush deepening slightly as she hesitated another moment and then whispered, almost shamefully, "Please?"

 _Please_ what? Please enact at least three of his teenage fantasies on their star with her full permission? Please get up close and personal with the ladyparts of the most attractive person he knew? Please help his poor, neglected partner out?

Getting her kitty to _pet her kitty._ Ha.

_Oh god._

Chat gulped, and let his hand slip up to cup her sex.

Her reaction was immediate—a harsh gasp and jerk as she tried to push into his hand, the heat of her soaking through both layers of their suits.

He clutched her waist with his other arm, her fingers digging tight into his shoulder, and that was all she waited for before biting her lip and rutting into his hand. The scarlet material over her crotch moved with his gloves more than it moved with her, and Chat was _trying_ not to add two and two together to get 'very, _very_ wet,' but it was nigh unavoidable.

Lycée sex-ed and porn had left him with the very basics—clit, labia, entrance, different on everyone but usually those three components were all there—and it wasn't _much_ but it was enough to know that if he pressed his fingers _just so_ at the back of her mound, he could probably coax her open under the thick material of her suit when she bore back.

He could and did, with more ease than he expected—which was another point to the 'very wet' equation, but if he thought too hard about that, he'd be utterly useless—and nearly swallowed his tongue at the noise she made.

His fingers were pressing up against what was probably her entrance, if the way it twitched was anything to go by. Carefully, _very_ carefully, he flipped his hand over and pressed his knuckles up against that spot.

Her abdomen clenched, her belly hollowing for a second as her thighs flexed like she wanted to clamp down around his hand, and _oh_...

"C-can you— _ooh..."_ Ladybug started, ragged and honeyed, only to cut off in a shuddering noise when he cautiously pressed his thumb at about where he guessed her clit would be.

"C-ca-an I?" he somehow managed to echo, his entire world narrowed down to where she was trembling around his hand.

"R-rub there," she whispered, a little surer now, like speaking in confidence to a friend. They were in one of the shadowed corners of the tower, away from the inner lights but in reach of moonlight, and her eyes glowed like _fire_ in it.

Knowing that 'speaking in confidence to a friend' was exactly what she was doing, Chat swallowed and rubbed there.

It was simple to continue the game, even if it didn't feel much like one anymore. Simple to watch her and _feel_ her and put together how she liked to be touched and how she didn't, even if just knowing that she was entrusting him with that knowledge rocked him to the core.

She approved of claws forcing the material of her suit just that little bit into her, but less of her mound being cupped and squeezed. Pressing the side of his hand against her slit and letting her rut against it dragged a high, desperate whine out of her chest. Moving his thumb in slow circles around her clit made her breathing go deep, made her thighs go lax and trembling and wide while tighter, quicker circles made her whole body clench up, panting the tiny little noises in his ear with every breath.

(Out of the corner of his eye, he couldn't help but glance at their feet. Her toes pointed and curled and moved with the rest of her body, and it occurred to him (distantly, powerfully, _suddenly_ ) that they were doing _exactly_ what it looked like.)

The longer he kept at it, the louder she got.

She was careful not to let her voice carry, but when she went from gasping around her bitten lip to tossing her head back and swallowing back pitchy, half-formed pleas, throat clicking and hips snapping, Chat wasn't sure it mattered. He was gutted either way.

From there, it didn't take long for her to reach a fever pitch, but it was still a shock when the fingers that had been scrabbling at his shoulders suddenly locked down tight, her back bowed into him, her face buried in his shoulder to muffle what could only be an honest-to-god _scream_.

She held that position for one, two, three mind-blowing seconds, and then collapsed against him with a sigh, boneless.

Chat stared sightlessly at the beam in front of him and tried to figure out if that had been what he thought it was. He couldn't really have just gotten Ladybug off, could he?

Because if it was, then he'd just... _Ladybug_ had just...

It was working its way through the back of his brain that he was so hard it _hurt,_ and had been for a while now, but that was somehow much less immediate than the sleepy, sloppy kisses Ladybug was gifting his neck and jaw with.

Looking down at her put his mouth and chin in range, as he found by way of damp lips pressing glancingly against his own, a happy hum vibrating in her throat.

He swallowed hard, forced air into his tingling lungs, and untwisted his aching back, pulling her on top of him as he went.

This, more or less, left him with a girly puddle blanketing his front.

He was just wondering how to work up to _...did you just come?_ (because the answer might be obvious, but _hell_ if he could _actually believe it_ ), when Ladybug found her voice.

"Mmnh," she hummed, nuzzling his throat. "You're _really_ good at that."

Chat mostly avoided choking on his own tongue (keyword: mostly) (oh god, _her voice..._ ) by pushing air back into his lungs and opening his mouth to say, "You approve?"

He didn't mean to pitch the question as low as it came out, but that was all it took to make Ladybug shiver.

"Mhmm," she agreed, lazily reaching up to dig her fingers into his hair and pull him down so she could kiss his chin.

"Well then," said Chat, strangled, shoving the overwhelming _need_ crawling in his bones under that thin veneer of humor that he so often relied on, "all this and more, _yours_ for just three small payments of €19.99."

It was only when Ladybug's glazed eyes sharpened and focused in interest that he realized that he'd made a _terrible mistake._ When when _when_ would he learn to _shut his mouth?!_

She hooked a finger behind his bell, her glove on his sweat-damp skin, and dragged it down a few centimeters, a lazy smirk on her face that was _almost_ a leer. "Oh? Just sixty euros?" Her hips tilted until they brushed his groin, and suddenly, that was the only thing he could think about. "Sounds like a steal to me. What's included in the _package_ , tiger?"

"...Uh," said Chat, whose abused and bedraggled mental processes were currently _exiting stage left, pursued by 'Bug._

Ladybug glanced at his deer-in-headlights expression and... took mercy, or something, a wry little smile on her face. "...Mm, never mind."

She eased her hips away, and, in a moment of panic that she might draw away entirely, Chat clamped her back down against him.

Something was up (a few somethings, actually), but his mental processes hadn't _quite_ returned yet, so all he managed to say was a hoarse, "...What?"

Ladybug caught his meaning anyway and melted back into him, looking sheepish. "I wasn't kidding, you know. You really are really good at that."

This time, Chat was in the _perfect_ place to feel the full effect of that compliment and all its implications—a hot sweep of flustered pleasure that sparked along his spine and tugged at his groin.

"And that's... not as common as you think," she admitted in a mumble. "I don't think I've ever had a date that ended that well." Delicate fingers came up to draw not-quite-idle patterns over his heart, and then curled into a loose fist. "Buuuuut hitting on you because I can't find a half-decent date isn't fair to you, so. Sorry."

Chat blinked, taking a second to catch up on that rush of words.

And then he needed another to catch up on the meaning.

"...I _did_ start it," he allowed slowly, the fact that his heart was hammering in his throat dawning on him even slower. "What kind of _package_ are you looking for?"

Because it kind of sounded like she wanted to... do _something_ with... with _him_ , and...

Ladybug now just looked flat-out embarrassed.

"The kind where we find a nice hotel room sometimes?" she suggested weakly, cheeks bright red once again.

"For...?"

He needed to know because right now, the only thing on his mind was Ladybug tying him to a mattress and riding him until he saw stars—which he'd long since accepted as impossible, but she might've just... he'd just been...

(The _noise_ she'd made...)

"Um, well." Ladybug sat up and ran her hands through her hair, waving broad gestures through the air and looking anywhere and everywhere but him as she spoke. _"I_ wanted sex, but that just me getting ideas—you really do flirt a _lot_ , even if I know you don't mean it, and I know you've never _actually_ thought about me like—" She broke off with a cough and sat up, even redder than before. _"Anyway!_ You like movies, right? We should _totally_ do a marathon sometime— oh! Have you seen _War of the Worlds_?"

"...I have," Chat's mouth confirmed while the rest of him was still stuck on, _well, I wanted sex,_ and _I know you've never actually thought about me like that._

It was occurring to him, very distantly, that Ladybug may have, one way or another, come to some incorrect conclusions about his intentions over the years.

"Shoot," she mumbled, and then brightened. "A horror movie marathon rewatch! We should totally—"

"Ladybug?"

"—do that..." She trailed off and winced, peeking at him like she was expecting a car crash. "Y-yeah?"

Chat opened his mouth. "I... I think... I don't..."

His partner shut her eyes like she'd seen found that car crash. "I know, I know. Can I pay you to just... forget I ever said that instead?"

"No, no, I mean..." he groaned, resisting the urge to bury his face in his hands. He then rebooted his sentence. "First offer, special deal—anything you want, completely free."

Just like that, the wince slipped off her face, replaced with hopeful surprise. "...Really?"

He waved at himself, knowing he was as bright a shade of red as she was, if not brighter. "All this and more, yours for _no_ payments of €19.99."

"And this package includes...?"

He swallowed, forcing himself to say the words, even if he couldn't look at her as he said it. "I... well. Orgasms, i-if you wanted them. Or movies. Or both."

"And you wouldn't mind?" she pressed, now looking very interested indeed.

He let out a ragged laugh that tripped over his pulse. _"Definitely_ not."

Ladybug blinked, a little moue on her face that suggested that she hadn't expected that at all. "But I thought you didn't..."

"Have you looked in a mirror recently? Or ever?" was what he said to clarify, _like an idiot_ , instead of the truth. "Who'd say no to you?"

Or, well, the whole truth. Ladybug _was_ absurdly attractive, both subjectively and objectively.

Aaaand only got more so when bashful and pleased, as evidenced in _case one_. "You think I'm...?"

"Tell you what—let's go to Versailles," said Chat, dropping his head back. The sky was clear and dark between the Eiffel Tower's well-lit beams. "They have some nice, shiny surfaces there I bet you'd love to meet."

Ladybug giggled the shy, hiccuping giggle of the effectively flattered, though Chat suspected the only reason he didn't get a gentle elbow to the gut was because they were in a bad position for it.

"You're nice," she half-accused, flushed pink in his peripheral vision. "When did you get so nice?"

"Wow," he grumbled. "I'm _always_ nice, where have _you_ been?"

"Hmm." The hum was thoughtful and sweet, and he suspected that looking down now would be bad for his health. "Thanks, Chat. You're a good friend. The _best_."

At this point, the hard and fast shut-down didn't even hurt, he reflected. Smiling wryly at the lattice above their heads, he murmured, "Anything for you, 'Bug."

"Orgasms because no one else can provide is going above and beyond, though," she said easily, and his pulse _throbbed_ under every inch of his skin.

No one else _could?_

Hot and pleased and a little worried about how those words _felt,_ Chat said, "No one? Aw, Bugaboo, I didn't know I was that special."

"Neither did I," she said, her nose-wrinkle making it into her voice somehow. "Where did _you_ get that good at that?"

Chat lowered his chin very slowly, face working as he wondered if he should laugh at the insult or not.

Ladybug flapped a hand in his face. "Don't look at me like that. You look like _that_ and then you show off so much that no one could take you seriously no matter _how_ gorgeous you are, and then you go and..." She spread her hands, then released the gesture and flopped on him like an affectionate bunny.

 _"Gnk!"_ said Chat, as her flop reacquainted her lovely figure with his in amazing ways, processing her words though ringing ears and starry vision.

...Had she just called him 'gorgeous'?

There'd _definitely_ been another insult there, but it was... _difficult_ to think about anything except that there were exactly two layers between her skin on his, or that if he hooked her knee just a little bit to the side, he'd be in _exactly_ the right position to...

(— _their suits peeled off, left to hang over the edge of their perch as Ladybug sunk down on him and let him figure out just how to rock into her to make her **scream**_ —)

He forcibly swallowed the thought down before it could ruin him, and patted Ladybug's very clothed back. "Wh-what matters is that I learned it."

He sort of noticed that his voice growled, and then very much noticed when Ladybug shivered again and looked up at him with a keen interest.

Whatever she said next was going to kill him dead, so he went on before she could. (See? He was learning!) "It's Sunday—don't you have work tomorrow?"

"Hm," Ladybug grumbled languidly, the sweetness of the sound trilling down his spine, and then drew herself up again and stretched, sated little smile still on her face.

Chat lost several seconds to staring while his brain leaked out of his ears, unheeded.

( _Hello, this is your ~~weekly~~ ~~daily~~ hourly reminder that your partner? Is hotter than the surface of the sun._ )

And then she cracked those radiation-blue eyes open again, and Chat gulped.

( _Sorry, did we say surface? We meant core. And convection zone. And chromosphere. She's hotter than the whole damn star._ )

Those eyes trailed all over him, a near-physical little brush of tingling heat, and then she said, "Oh!"

"What?" asked Chat, tongue thick, and then followed her gaze... right to the still-present bulge under his belt. Stomach clenching in some horrible, _wonderful_ agglomeration of embarrassment and arousal, Chat caught her hand as she reached towards him.

She—lord help him—she _pouted_ at him.

"I'm okay," he said—a rather spectacular lie, considering Ladybug was giving every indication that she wanted to touch his dick.

Ladybug glanced dubiously at said section of his body, and then raised her eyebrows at his (scarlet) face, pout turning into a more pointed moue.

 _"Really,"_ he insisted, an even bigger lie than before. "Just... gimme a minute."

Or sixty.

(He had long since passed into blueball territory, and after something like that? He'd probably be lucky if he calmed down sometime tonight, much less in the next hour.)

"I know the point of this was for _me_ to get off," Ladybug argued, looking consternated, "but that doesn't mean I should be the _only_ one getting off."

He waved her off, and then tried not to notice the loose, liquid way she spilled off of him. "Still gotta get home. 'Sides, Plagg might murder me."

Two very good excuses when what he really needed was a little time to adjust to this new and strange world order.

Ladybug sighed in reluctant concession and stretched again. "Fiiiiine. I'm paying you back for this later, though."

And, while Chat's head was still ringing with those words, she stood up.

"See you later, tiger," she purred, and unclipped her yo-yo from her belt.

 _Amazing_ how very _unironic_ that nickname sounded now.

(Amazing how much more devastating it was, too.)

"...Later," Chat croaked into the space she'd been, blinking stars out of his eyes. Lucky her, getting even that much while her smirk was still branded into the backs of his eyelids.

As she left, things that weren't Ladybug started making themselves known to him again. The chilly air was half-sweet and half smog and stung his airways all the way down, the chatter of late-night tourists bubbling underneath the Tower. Fire and ice tingled in all his limbs, a desperate _need_ singing in all of his bones. In his pants, there was something that might have been a hard-on or might have been a migraine, it was impossible to tell.

And, not least of all, there were about three kilometers between himself and home.

...This was gonna be a long night.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [when you're ready, come & get it](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16860511) by [a_miiraculer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_miiraculer/pseuds/a_miiraculer), [clairelutra (exosolarmoon)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exosolarmoon/pseuds/clairelutra)




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